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Interview with the Director
Link here. By STEVE PERSALL, St. Petersburg Times Staff Writer Published October 9, 2003 Paolo Ravinski is either a madman or a very good actor milking a juicy role for everything it's worth. You don't know the name, but TV ads for Halloween Horror Nights 13 burn two things in your memory: a scratchy phonograph playing You Ought to Be in Pictures and Ravinski's gaze, with yellowed eyes peering through a camera lens as his victims - excuse me, actors - perform against their will. Critics and law enforcement agencies call it snuff cinema. Ravinski prefers "art." He's allegedly an underground favorite in European circles darker than the ones under his eyes. The story goes that someone found his work - films with titles such as The Blood Letting and Death Procession - on the Internet and brought them to Universal Studios Orlando's attention. Now Ravinski is the poster boy for Universal's annual monthlong Halloween bash. His specialty is Infestations, where volunteers surrender to Ravinski's art, at least as far as park regulations allow. Being subjected to snakes, rats and bugs is child's play compared to what Ravinski would like to do to tourists. I met Ravinski in a screening room on Universal's back lot. He's a small man, tense and jittery, clutching his jacket, constantly squirming and stammering as disturbing thoughts are shaped into words. And that's after he says the screening room makes him feel comfortable. "Normally I would be watching something, but they won't let me bring my films on property because of legal things," he says. For 25 minutes we chatted about Ravinski's art, why he'll never go Hollywood, and celebrities he would love to cast in a film. Lunatic or thespian? Decide for yourself. How did you begin making films? "I picked up my father's camera when I was 8 years old. But I got in trouble because I was wasting film. I would shoot birds with a BB gun and when I'd see them fall out of the trees I would film them flittering and stuff. I'm self-taught in terms of knowing what I like. Then I went to Europe and found people who are into what I'm doing." Any creative influences you can pinpoint? "I like Civil War photographs. Those are just amazing, so long ago and they have pictures of the bodies. I like the old black and white Universal films. And I like the '70s films because they were very grainy and that made it seem real. I think some of that is coming back." Like The Blair Witch Project? "Blair Witch was supernatural. I'm not big into supernatural films. If you're not afraid of ghosts or witchcraft, then automatically the viewer is lost. "But you're afraid when you're trapped, when there's power over you and you want to get away. That's real fear. I like the way they used the video camera in Blair Witch. It had that chaotic madness to it. But I don't like video either. That just looks like mom and pop shot it." What is your style of handling actors? "I just tell them what I want. I'm mostly about the visuals as long as they give me what I want. I just turn on the camera. I want to make sure the fear is real and precise. I've got to know what they're afraid of. A lot of people don't know what they're getting into sometimes. I've got to make sure they know this isn't a game." Where do you draw the line? "I don't draw a line but I have to watch what I say. If some situations like this put a line there, I can't cross it. I hope whenever it's my time I would be willing to turn that camera on myself. If it's boring, I would do to myself what I've done to my own actors to make sure it's good stuff. I wouldn't draw a line even if it pertained to me." Describe a few of your films. "They show clips in the commercial. I did Clowns Are Always Laughing on the Outside and Crying on the Inside, So Let's See. I wanted to make that clown cry and laugh at the same time and really get inside him. But I was only able to show a select part of that movie. "I did the Rubber Ducky one where a guy is in a bathtub, trapped and you know something's going to happen. I'm not going to let you go. I've got something planned. It's not going to be like a joke like Candid Camera or something. "I did one that I felt was about life and death. It was a man in his last days, a lonely guy. I know he didn't have any family. I was able to invite him to my apartment to spend his last days there. "It was real. It was gritty. It was dirty. It wasn't like a Hollywood movie where they utter a final word or a last breath and their eyes close. In every movie they do that, and it's so untrue. I've seen it and that's not what it is." You're looking agitated right now. "I'm just getting ideas in my head. You're so close that I get frustrated." Ever get a chance to meet your fans? "I do have fans, but when I actually meet them, you may not hear from them again. It's like my secret club. Whenever somebody starts getting too close to me, I kind of put a stop to that. It's almost like I'm giving somebody a chance to be my new star. It's like life and death and rebirth and death." Ingmar Bergman had the same idea. Why don't you try to work with the Hollywood system, try changing it from the inside? "It's all about money in Hollywood. I can't do the stuff they want. I don't think the actors' union would appreciate some of the things I ask my actors to do. "I would rather just go out into some poor undeveloped country or region where there's no questions asked, nobody behind my back. I can't do the Hollywood thing. I'm having a hard time doing this, sitting on my hands at Universal." It could be worse. You could be working for Disney. "I've never even seen a Disney movie. I've been told I should see Bambi. They told me the mom thing. But that's not real. The only thing I've seen on television is Fear Factor, but it was a lie." Are there any Hollywood actors you would consider casting in your films? "I would like to scare Ben Affleck and J-Lo. They're annoying. I would like to make them split for real. That's just Hollywood right there. I'd really like to get my hands on somebody who's Hollywood so I could put them in a position their agents and publicists would never want them in. I would love to put J-Lo in that clown thing. Oh, yeah, that would be good." Category:Halloween Horror Nights article Category:Halloween Horror Nights 13